New Choices in Education Will Drive Broader Reform BREAKING A CLASSROOM MONOPOLY

Article excerpt

EDUCATION reform as it is being implemented across the country
has four main threads: money, equity, decentralization, and
standards. Within the context of the established structure of
public education, these have generated reasonable attempts to
improve student outcomes. Unfortunately, it is the structure of
public education itself that is in greatest need of reform. To
break through the status quo we must dismantle the monopoly
structure of public education through deregulation, independently
managed schools, and choice.

More than 90 percent of school-age children attend public
schools. With a few recent exceptions, children and parents have
only one source for public education: their local school district.
Local school departments are harnessed together by similar state
departments of education and a web of federal laws governing public
schools. Of equal importance is the pervasive presence of
collective-bargaining agreements between school districts and local
affiliates of the two national teachers unions. Even though there
are thousands of nominally independent providers of public
schooling, these separate entities do not compete with one another.

OK, so public education is a monopoly. So what? Well, like all
monopolies the public education system has fallen into stagnation,
if not decline, and it is marked by a preoccupation with politics
and bureaucracy, rather than customers and quality. As has been
well documented, scores on tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT) have declined over the past 30 years and are now
stagnant. This decline in academic performance took place during a
period of substantial real spending growth. Some insight into the
cause of this educational stagflation can be gleaned from the fact
that less than 45 percent of all employees in the US education work
force are teachers. In 1950 more than 70 percent of the work force
were teachers.

Bureaucratic influences

Underlying these numbers is the growing influence of politics
and bureaucracy. Increasingly, resources are directed toward those
programs with the most vocal political organizations, the most
adept legal advocates, and the most entrenched bureaucracies.

Educational improvement will happen because of what goes on in
schools and homes, not because of government actions. But policy
changes are needed to make improvement possible, specifically
through the creation of a real education marketplace that will free
educators and parents to take direct responsibility for what they
do best, namely caring for and teaching children.

There is a long list of laws and regulations governing education
that should be repealed or rewritten, but for the sake of brevity I
will focus on only two: special and bilingual education. There is a
simple concept behind both of these laws: All children have a right
to a free and appropriate education. …